Painting God’s Masterpiece Part 3
Living In The Land of WERE
Scriptures: Deuteronomy 4:9; 14; Genesis 12:2; 15:4-6; Numbers 13:27-33
Introduction:
After God led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, Moses gave them some instructions about remembering what God had done. In Deuteronomy 4:9 and 14 Moses told the people the following: “Only give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons…….The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it.” Moses told the adults to remember what they had seen and what they had been taught. He told them to also teach their children about what God had done for them in delivering them out of Egypt. Why did Moses want them to do this? So that when they got into the Promised Land, they would continue to walk with the Lord. Moses knew that should they ever forget what God had done for them they would turn their backs on Him. We will see shortly that they had a very short memory and every time that faced a challenge they forgot what God had already done for them.
This is part 3 of my series “Painting God’s Masterpiece”. In this message I want to focus your attention on the subtitle “Living in the land of WERE.” Living in the land of WERE is having a mindset focused on the past - the hurt, failures and trials to the point of not being able to see what God is doing in your life. When Moses told the people to remember what they had seen – he was telling them to remember the image. Keep before their eyes how God had delivered them. He was giving them something to see – an image to remember – so that when they arrived in the Promised Land they would have confidence in all that God would do on their behalf because He had done it before. He wanted that picture, that image of God’s deliverance firmly painted in their minds and the minds of their children. Remember, the image that we see and focus on is the image we will try to achieve. My message this morning and next week will focus on WERE and what happens when we refuse to change the image we are focusing on. By not changing the image, we continue to live in and fulfill the images of our past. This is what I will be referring to as living in the land of WERE. Have you ever heard someone say “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks” or that “someone is stuck in their ways”? This is living in the land of WERE. Living in WERE is where our minds are so focused on what happened to us in the past that we cannot process the visual image of where God is taking us today. Not only can we not process the present day image, but we also cannot latch hold on what He will be doing for us tomorrow. Through the message I want you to consider leaving the land of WERE and moving to the land of “WHAT SHALL BE.”
I. Living In WERE
Before I go deeper into the message, I need to give you a visual to ensure that we all understand what it means to live in WERE. People often use the phrase that something has “escaped my mind” when they have forgotten something. Sometimes when something is forgotten it is gone for good – like a thought, while other things are just forgotten temporarily until something triggers the memory. In both cases what was once known is now gone, whether permanently or temporarily, and while you cannot remember what you forgot, you cannot use the information. Think about baking a cake from memory. You can only accomplish the task as long as you can remember what steps need to be taken. If you cannot remember, everything stops until you can get the information. If we think about this spiritually, when we forget what God has done for us in the past, we cannot see what He is doing for in the present or the future. If we do not see the images of the victories of the past, we cannot visualize new images of present and future victories because new images are based on previous one. If you always remember what God has done for you it is very easy to see Him doing more in the future. In order to bring an image into reality, you must see it and when you visualize it, you must believe in it. This works to our good as well as to our detriment. The past that I am talking about this morning I will call WERE. The future that I will be referencing I will call WHAT SHALL BE. I want you to think of WERE with the following in mind: Where Every Remembrance Escapes. Living in WERE is where the memories of what God has done escapes us which leads to our not being able to get a new image of what is coming. Let’s examine a few examples of some individuals living in WERE and how it affected what God was able to do in their lives.
A. Abraham and Sarah
Genesis chapter fifteen gives us an account of Abraham and the promise that God made to him. God called Abraham to leave his family and everything he’d known to travel to a land that God would show him. This land would be new to him but would be a gift to him from God. When God told Abraham to do this He also told Him “And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2) God promised Abraham that He would make a great nation out of him and Abraham heard God’s voice and did as God commanded him. Together with his nephew Lot, Abraham traveled to the new land. At some point while they traveled, Abraham and Lot decided it would be best if they separated so Abraham went one way and Lot went another. In Genesis chapter 14, we find a situation where a group of kings rise up and attack the city where Lot was dwelling. They captured Lot and his family and took them to make them slaves. When Abraham heard about it he took his trained men and went in pursuit. He defeated the kings and brought back everything they had taken, including Lot and his possessions. When Abraham returned from battle Melchizedek, a priest of God Most High, blessed him after which Abraham gave him a tenth of the spoils he had taken.
After this incident, in chapter fifteen, God came to Abraham in a vision and told him that his reward would be great. At this point Abraham reminds God that he is childless and without an heir except for his servant. At this, God said “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body; he shall be your heir.” (Genesis 15:4b) To ensure that Abraham really remembered and understood what He was telling him, God took Abraham outside. Look at verse five. “And He took him outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.” God wanted Abraham to have a very clear image of what He was going to do. He could have just told Abraham that he would have many descendants, but He wanted Him to have a visual; an image that he could latch on to. So God took him outside and showed him the stars. Visualize Abraham looking up at the stars and seeing how many there were, way to many for him to count. God told him that if he could count those stars, he would be able to count the number of descendants he would have. Now here is some trivia and a visual for you to see as you think about Abraham looking up at the stars representing his descendents. If you were to count the stars in our universe only one at a time, counting one star per second; 60 stars per minute; 3,600 stars per hour; 86,400 stars per day; 31,536,000 stars per year; it would take you approximately 3000 years to could all of the stars in our universe. Now consider that image as you think about what God was telling Abraham his descendants would be before he had any descendants at all. Abraham was an old man with no kids and God was telling him that he would have many descendents that originated from his body. Verse six tells us that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Although he was old with no kids at all, he believed what God told him. Abraham chose to leave the land of WERE where he could easily focus on his and Sarah’s age and the fact that they were too old to have children for the land of “WHAT SHALL BE” knowing that anything was possible with God. If you continue reading the story, you will find that Sarah on the other hand continued to live in WERE. She laughed (Genesis 18:12) when she heard God telling Abraham that she would have a baby. Because she continued to live in WERE, she also gave Abraham her maidservant for her to have a child in Sarah’s place. Sarah stayed in WERE until God moved her to “WHAT SHALL BE” by keeping His promise to Abraham. In the land of “WHAT SHALL BE” Abraham had a son which led to the next group of people we will examine – the Children of Israel.
B. Children of Israel
Israel name was originally Jacob. As you remember, Jacob was Abraham’s grandson and he had twelve sons. On the night that he wrestled with God (in the form of an angel) his name was changed to Israel. So the children of Israel were his sons and all of their descendents. They were the beginning of the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham. Now turn to Numbers the thirteenth chapter. In this chapter, God brings the Children of Israel to the Promised Land – the land of “WHAT SHALL BE.” Egypt represented the land of WERE, where they thought God had forgotten them. They were now out of WERE and at the border of “WHAT SHALL BE”; all they had to do was cross over. As they waited at the border, God instructed Moses to send over spies to spy out the land – to see if what God had promised them was being fulfilled. The goal was to let the people know that their efforts would not be in vain and to motivate them to take it. Remember, when they came upon the land they knew what God had promised, but they could not visualize it yet. So to help them see it, to get a visual image that they could hold on to, Moses sent out 12 spies. But it did not have the desired effect. By sending out the spies God hoped the image of the land of “WHAT SHALL BE” would be enough to motivate them to go in and possess the land, but that did not happen. The spies looked over the land for almost 40 days before they returned. When they came back, here is what they reported.
Look at Numbers 13:27-28. “Thus they told him, and said, ‘We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover we saw the descendents of Anak there.” Now jump down to verse 33. “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of Nephilim) and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” When the spies returned, they reported that the Promised Land, the land of “WHAT SHALL BE” possessed everything that God had promised. Truly it flowed with milk and honey. The problem was however, that ten of the spies still lived in WERE. They had forgotten just that quickly everything God had done for them. After telling of the prosperity of the land, they immediately began to tell of the cities, the walls and the giants who lived there. What is so interesting is in verse thirty-three when they said they became as grasshoppers in their own sight. They could not see themselves being victorious over this city – they were still living in WERE. Remember, every nation that they had gone up against had been bigger, meaner and better at war than them, yet they prevailed. Why had they prevailed? Because God was with them. Ten of the spies had forgotten that the battle would not be theirs but God’s. Only two, Joshua and Caleb, knew what God would do and understood that they could take the land. However, the other ten got the people so riled up that they almost stoned Joshua and Caleb and appointed another leader to take them back to Egypt – back to WERE. Because of their rebellion, God made the decision to allow them to die in WERE.
In Numbers 14:22-23 and 28-29, God pronounced His judgment on those who refused to enter into the land of “WHAT SHALL BE”. He said “Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it…..Say to them, ‘As I live’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.” Because they refused to enter into the Promised Land, God gave them what they wished for. They had actually said that they would rather have died in Egypt or in the wilderness than go up into the Promised Land and God gave them what they asked for. All those over the age of twenty who rebelled against Him would die in WERE, in the wilderness, in the land that was not where God wanted to take them.
When the spies came back from seeing the land, this should have been a time of rejoicing, a time of celebration because they would witness the fulfillment of what God had promised Abraham. However, even though they could see all of the blessings, ten of the spies could not see God giving it to them because it seemed too difficult. The difficulty of their present situation overshadowed what God had already done for them and the past victories escaped their minds. They were stuck in WERE and would die there. Can you see where I am headed with this? God brought them to the border of the Promised Land. He had Moses send in spies to see the land so that they could return and give the people an image of what was waiting for them. He was giving them a vision. He wanted them to see themselves inhabiting the land. He wanted them to see themselves eating the large fruits of the land. He wanted them to see themselves being victorious. Instead ten of the spies saw themselves as grasshopper and failures. They could not see themselves taking the land. They could not see the victory. All they could see was the land of WERE – Where Every Remembrance Escaped them – every memory of what God had already brought them through was gone.
In this story, all the Children of Israel had to do was take a step - just take a step into the Promised Land, into the land of WHAT SHALL BE. How bad do you really want something? The answer is to step beyond where you have already stopped. They had already arrived, but they did not want it bad enough to step beyond where they had already stopped and rested for the 40 days while the spies spied out the land. What about you and your situation. How bad do you want what God has for you. How bad do you want to see the image of what God sees when He looks at you? Do you want it bad enough to take a step beyond where you have already stopped? If you are on the border, do you want it bad enough to take one step into the promise?
Remember “Worry Ends Where Faith Begins.”
I could not get everything into this message so I will continue next week with a couple of examples from the New Testament of people living in the land of WERE. As you go through this week, think about where you are. Are you painting God’s masterpiece of you standing in WERE – where the background image of your painting is WERE? Are you scratching your previous painting and now you’re starting over with a painting of God’s masterpiece of you in the land of WHAT SHALL BE? Remember, God gave the image, but you control the paint, the brushes and the strokes you make that will ultimately become a picture.
